Details

Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 29 September 2011

Hits: 2051

The Talking Waiter:

He likes to talk, this new waiter.

He's new, not to everyone else but to me - he was hired and fired in my absence, my short and unproductive vacation. And now he's been rehired.

"I'm upselling wine" he tells us, as if this explains why he's stood in front the same table for 20, 40, 60 minutes talking nonstop, about anything .

He does bring in the tips, the negligence of a dozen tables will yield fruit upon the thirteenth, me, this style of service offends me, if my waiter stood and talked to me for even 5 minutes, unless I was very regular and genuinely liked him, I'd tell them - politely - to go away.

And his conversation, it comes at a cost, everyone else runs his foods, sets the tables, polishes the cutlery, while he stands there and chats....

"I am an educated man!..This is ... and ... and ...."

He has opinions. Educated, or so he tells us, opinions, "Where did you go to school?" I ask when he's done telling the table how smart he is.
"In Paris" is his reply...
I try for something a little more specific, he can't remember details, only that he was educated.

Me, I don't talk to the tables if I can help it. It's a bad trap, you end up being expected to talk to them when it's busy, the restaurant doesn't work that way, there's too much to be done. Thus I'm silent, I don't know our customers that well, haven't worked there 10 or 20 years, let the other waiter, G, do the talking.

This new waiter, he likes to talk..

He's Arabic, from somewhere in the Middle east, has a wife and kids here, I try to find out where from - Lebanon? Morocco? Syria? He can't answer again, long stories involving his grandparents and inlaws and outlaws and the secret police and immigration, by the time he's done I'm more confused than ever and he'd have me believe he's Italian.

He's adopted a western name, something simple and common we can all remember, the Chinese and Philipino cooks do the same, but I've seen the cheques, he's definitely Arabic.

He is beside himself with laughter, he can't go on, really, finally he wipes a tear from his eye...I'm running the food and he points to where it should be set.

"I will do what my father did when his horse was stolen"...He's laughing in the midst of his own joke, it's so funny he can't finish telling it, finally..."He bought a new horse..."

The table laughs, politely, or perhaps they're genuinely amused, I can't tell, I'm off doing other things.

We're a small restaurant, we can't afford to pay someone to stand and talk to tables. It's his dodge, I've worked with talkers before, it's their way of getting out of doing anything remotely productive. We carry him.

He fucks up orders. Lots. It's because he's too busy talking and waiting, it's the art of listening, but he doesn't get it, he argues with the customers, they just want a laid back meal, and soon they forget and accept his mistakes and are listening to his soothing drivel once again.

There's an iPhone app that monitors the ebb and flow of conversation. I'm pretty sure he would score a 90% or greater. Sad I don't have an iPhone.

The staff, most don't like him, they find his persistent chatting and pretended authority annoying.
What's he an authority on? Why, ask him a question and he'll tell you....

****

Goats produce 50 liters of milk a day. Me, I don't know, but most goats aren't even 50 liters big, the more I doubt this the more he backs his facts, he knows this, a goat is a valuable thing where he's from ("and where is that exactly....?" I ask...), he stand by it, he should know, 50 liters a day...

****

A table of 5 businessmen and a single business woman. He tells us that the woman, she's hot for him. She's probably in her early 40's, attractive, he's convinced - or trying to convince us - that she wants him. We decide to play along. After the table has left we write a short note on the back of the bill telling him how much "she" enjoyed the service and inviting him to call her. We get one of the girls from the kitchen to volunteer her cell number.
We wait until he finds it.
"Of course I would never call her..." he says. "I have a wife and children....still, I told you she was hot for me...."
He can't get over it. He knew all along, told us, what do we think? And still he keeps talking.

****

Of course he calls. Again and again. And the kitchen staff member gets so tired of his calling and playing the role of the excited mistress that eventually - at 3:00 or so AM, she forgets to answer.
He finally gets her answering machine, and begins to figure it out.

****

He was calling to tell her that he had a wife and children, and then when he talked to her he didn't know how to break the news and so wanted to let her down gently....he's explaining this to the kitchen..they're not that stupid....

He's made himself a fool, and for a night he's suddenly quiet. A couple of the staff try to blame his mood on me - I point out that I merely provided him the opportunity, it was him who leapt upon it....

*****

It's a table - large - set menu, business people, they don't want to listen to him and so he's forced to stand and listen to them. He pulls me aside: "I've been listening to them..." he begins "You know, they're not that smart, I could do their job...it's all luck..."

He's right. I've listened to them, there's no great conversations going on, it's all BS.
But he doesn't understand how much more socially acceptable he'd have to be, and I haven't the heart to explain it.

*****

Staff go for drinks. Sometimes we play pool, he has his own cue, it's in his car, we wait while he gets it. And he actually has some talent for the game, which only serves to make him more disliked...

*****

He's seen the little trinkets and goo-gaws I bring back for staff from garage sales. And he wants to tag along, he's convinced that the costume jewellry I've bought for the girls is real, the fake pearls and cubic zirconium and 24 carat gold plate, he wants to buy some for his wife.

***

The staff explain to me that he claims to have lost his virginity at age 8 to a 20 year old babysitter.
He hasn't told this one in front of me, perhaps afraid I might call bullshit. Or query the sex of the babysitter....

****

He's forever trying to ingratiate himself to the owner, ridiculous stories, guessing games...the owner shows him an old passport photo...
- "I know exactly when this was taken....1978? 1979?" he says. The owner shows hime the date. "74! You see, I was right!...."
He's grateful for this job, prospects for him weren't that great, while he was fired from here he sold cars, 2 in 4 months, he was hired back when his wife came and plead for his job from the owner.
And he's borrowed money from him, as has his wife, ostensibly to help with immigration costs....

****

He's bought a book of fruit jokes, dumb-ass jokes for kids that he bought off of someone who came in the restaurant, reading the look upon my face he continues to tell them to me: "Why is a banana never alone? Because it's always in a bunch..."

***

It's one of our wine tastings and he's managed to corner the host in a corner.

"We are old hands at this business.....I used to serve Jean Chretian....and Brian Mulroney...and...."
We're waiting on the customers and the host is too polite to escape the conversation, I think to rescue him but I'm subject to this every day of the week....Later I can corner him and tell him about how I used to serve Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ....

****

He's talking to his wife on the phone. It's all Arabic, babble babble "Bitch" babble babble "Asshole",...
The nephew's curious, don't they have words for these things in his language?
He, too, is annoyed at all the patter, at the way he "upsells" the Ripassa, one of our cheaper wines, "And this is the ... Ripassa, second press of the Amarone...."
The nephew has his own version, simpleton that he is even he, on occasion, has some wit...
"And this is Ginger - Ale, second press of Coca-Cola....and this is butter...second press of milk...."

****

"They have yet to invent something that works to trim nose hair...."
- "scissors"? I suggest
"No way!".

****

He's the knack of doing you a small favour, like brushing an imaginary piece of lint off of your lapel, then telling you it was nothing. It's shit, but he does it with the customers as well, exaggerated laying of the napkin across the lap, other trivial services that by his emphasizing the triviality actually make them seem bigger than they are. He doesn't clear tables, it's beneath him, or take dessert orders or - if he can help it - polish cutlery.

***

He's telling us about how he won a million dollar on the slots at the Casino, was cheated out of it, he was surrounded by drunks and little old Chinese ladies patting him on the back and congratulating him, when the final lucky gold brick shifted on the video wheel and he found himself out of luck. And so he calls the manager over and has her check the machine, where's his winnings? and she tells him he's not a winner, he tells her to check again, she does, he's still not a winner, he's not convinced, he demands justice and the drunks and elderly Chinese, they're behind him cheering him on, demanding that he be paid....
Security comes, he's surrounded "You touch me and I'll be forced to defend myself, and I'm not paying the surgeons to put you back together again....AND I have a heart condition.....I'm not some bum off the street that you can push around, I'm a businessman....and your breath stinks...stay away from me..."
He doesn't get a million dollars, not that night, ejected from the casino, yes, but he's got a number that he can call to have things fixed.
He's finished polishing the glasses, polishing them again as he tells the story once more to all who care to listen..."I've filed a complaint, I think they'll try to settle..."

****

Today his wife called the restaurant, he didn't come home last night, was he out with G?, well, eventually he did come home, 6:00 AM, now she's missing all the money in the house and her jewelry has disappeared, she's convinced she's been robbed, it couldn't have been him, there are more calls throughout the day, the police are over investigating the theft, G is calling him on his cell but it's disconnected, G's day off is at stake and he's pissed, we speculate - gambling? another woman?

Details

Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 27 September 2011

Hits: 1540

When he's bored he just talks. He provokes you with his conversation, telling you things that - while true - he shouldn't be telling you. 

Today it's about the "camping" trips in Italy when he was young. Perhaps 12 or so. Where he and his friends rode to an isolated spot in a forest and sat round in a circle and jacked off together.

A "Circle Jerk", as they say.

He brought it up his last trip to Italy, a group of his old friends and their new girlfriends and family, "remember when guys...." there was a discreet coughing and silence.

It just popped into his head.

Now the story doesn't offend me as much as the fact of it does, recalling once vigorous arguments I held with girlfriends about this exact same topic - girlfriends that believed that all men rode to the forest - together - and jacked off.

At this time I'd never heard of this, naive, and I denied it, certainly I knew nothing of it. 

But since meeting the Nephew I know better.

***

He's back home on his lunch break, down in Sunalta, he's unable to return to work as the cops have effected a bust in the alley. 

A car, 2 black guys, one white, native girl.

They've cordoned off the alley, there's no coming or going for the nephew, and so he sits on his balcony and watches. 

The cops haul a dozen, 2 dozen, 50 empty mickeys of Alberta Vodka from the car, then finally one full one. "Is this yours" they ask in turn every member of the car. Everyone denies it.

They keep going through the car. A bag of pills, the nephew can describe it, no one in the car claims it. Same with some loose needles filled with what appears to be blood. Still they go through the car. They find a large rubber dildo - with balls. This pleases the cops endlessly. They start with the native girl ... "Is this yours?" .... she denies it. They move onto the black guys, ....." Is this yours? Are you sure? Look at it....I think it is...." They talk to the nephew..."You ever seen one like this? With balls? He hasn't.....

He's laughing so hard as he tells it to me, he knew some of the cops from his many domestic complaints, invited them in for a coffee but they couldn't, still, it was the funnies thing he's seen and I can well imagine....

***

He has a sympathy for the homeless that I don't possess. There's a native fellow in a wheelchair that pisses every morning on his window, he wakes to see the man's **ck streaming urine down the glass, he doesn't get upset. "Hey" he tells the guy "Could you please... stop...I mean..." he's explaining it to me..."I mean once, OK, twice, OK, three times, OK, but every day and it will start to stink...." He gives him money as a sort of bribe, I know who he's talking about, the wheelchair guy takes it as an invitation to spend the night, the Nephew has to quickly backpedal...."My girlfriend, she'd kill me..."

Details

Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 27 September 2011

Hits: 1906

I'm inline at the Good Samaritan Rummage Sale - Early, this is not one to miss. I was here at 7:15 AM, the sale starts at 9:00 AM, my early arrival guarantees me about position 50 in line, even accounting for the "filling" that goes on as friends join friends ahead of you. 

There's no worries today, I know all the dealers in line and only one or two are of any threat to me, the rest are idle treasure hunters who show up at every sale then disappear. I know the competition.

And I've brought the coffee to propitiate the gods, hand one to the book fairy and a couple to random strangers, my karma is secure.

I recognize many of the faces from the preceding rummage sale. This event, it has it's regulars.

At 8:30 I see an old woman, stocky, short, limping, classical Russian Babushka heading towards the sale. She's limping, she marches into the line some 10 people before me and works her way towards the front, then stands at attention, left hand behind her back. I don't see her interacting with the other customers, there's no indication that she's found her granddaughter or grandson or group of seniors friends, she's on her own.

It looks to me for all the world as if she's butted into line, and I'm dead pissed off. Bad enough that people claim "friendship" and butt into line some 10 or 20 places early despite being late, but this woman can't even claim that. 

But she's old, maybe late 70's, early 80's, and so I daren't say a thing.

I go for a cigarette, it's implicit that my position will be held by the rest of the line, I meet a vendor I'm familiar with.

"Her? She does that every year. A couple of years I tried to tell her to go to the back of the line, she tells me she's sick, I tell her then she shouldn't be here...."

 She's still here. Her age is the antidote to waiting in line like the rest of us, she's used the "sickness" excuse how many years in a row to get pole-position on the best garage sale in the city. But what can you say? Start an argument, try to pitch her to the back of the line and you'll be expelled.

I can't wait until I'm old....

Details

Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 21 September 2011

Hits: 1616

Now for the first couple of days there were the meetings in the back room, groups of people defrauded in the Luxury Car Scam, the Owner, the door would be closed and none of the waiters would dare to enter.

There is a cloud above the restaurant.

They're not the most sympathetic group of victims by a long shot, people who thought they could by next-to-new Ferrari's and Lamborghini's at a fraction of their value are not exactly widows and orphans. And some of them have too generously shared their pain by reducing their tips.

It's taken it's toll at home as well - we can only speculate, but the Boss has been unshaven, there's a blanket on the sofa downstairs, his wife calls and has staff relay messages to him, he's shouted himself hoarse and the frequent shouting fits in the kitchen are sounding more and more exhausted, he's worn himself out.

They've caught Franco or Santo or John or however he styles himself, the police seem confident they can recover most of the money, me, I'm not so confident, seldom do victims of fraud ever see their money again. But what else can they say? 

And there are more of the private meetings, the Italians sitting round the table and discussing in quiet voices the probabilities of whether they'll ever see their money again.

Unlikely.